Petition of Ann F. Hosmer for Relief from her Political Disabilities

In this petition to Congress, Ann Hosmer requests a relief from her political disabilities. This petition was part of a petition drive organized by the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) calling for a constitutional amendment that would give women the right to vote. The petition closely follows a template provided by NWSA (an example of this type is the Petition of Dr. Clemence Lozier). The organization encouraged women to personalize their messages to Congress by including their personal reasons for desiring the the right to vote. In her petition, Ann Hosmer expresses how she has seen and felt the influence of one-sided and unjust laws and her belief that righteous government must include equal rights for all.

This petition was referred to to the Committee on the Judiciary in the House of Representatives on February 1, 1878. On January 10, 1878 Senator Aaron Sargent first introduced the joint resolution for an amendment to the Constitution that would ultimately extend the right to vote to women as the 19th Amendment, 42 years later. Petitions like this one from Ann Hosmer show how women exercised their rights to bring about change in the decades-long fight for the right to vote.

 

Transcript

Petition
of
Ann F. Hosmer
for
relief from political disabilities.

To the Senate and House of representatives
in Congress assembled.

Ann F. Hosmer, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the state of Massachusetts,
& county of Middlesex, Town of Bedford, hereby respectfully petitions your honorable body for the removal of her political disabilities & that she may be declared invested with full powers to exercise her right of self-government at the ballot box, all state constitutions or state laws to the contrary notwithstanding.

Ann F. Hosmer

I ask of Congress this recognition of my right to the franchise, first, because it is my right, and I should be false to freedom, and Humanity, as well as to my own conscience, if I failed to claim it, and secondly, because I have both seen & felt the influence of the one-sided, masculine, & unjust character of many of the laws that men have made for the government of women, & again because there can be no hope of righteous government till it shall have justice, and equal rights for all, as its foundation.


Petition of
Ann F. Hosmer

For relief from
her political
disabilities
[illegible] Butler of
Mass
Feby 1878
Referred to the Committee [crossed out] the
Judiciary